


Nonsensical

by dreamsofdramione



Series: Fairest of the Rare's LoveFest 2020 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 10:14:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22848508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofdramione/pseuds/dreamsofdramione
Summary: Around everyone else, she wants to be taken seriously, to be studious, and show everyone, students and staff alike, that she is a formidable witch despite her blood status. But here, nestled in the rows and rows of tomes, surrounded by the smell of a musky sweetness that lingers between the pages, she can be that silly teenage girl who dreams of his red hair set against a field of wheat in some far off place.-In third year, Hermione Granger pines after Percy Weasley.#LF2020 #TeamAphrodite
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Percy Weasley
Series: Fairest of the Rare's LoveFest 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642516
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39
Collections: Love Fest 2020





	Nonsensical

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mcal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcal/gifts).



> Written for the Fariest of the Rare's LoveFest 2020  
> #TeamAphrodite #LF2020

A crush is just that—some silly, nonsensical, misplaced affection. And Hermione is a  _ rational  _ witch. Even at the tender age of fourteen, she knows being enamored with someone so very far out of the realm of possibility is anything but logical. Despite her firm grip on reality, a passage she’s read somewhere before comes to mind; something about logic and matters of the heart and how the two don’t always mesh. She thinks she gets it now. 

Red hair has never seemed attractive before. Her best friend, and the object of her newfound affection’s brother to boot, has hair nearly the same shade. Yet when the light hits it just right, Ron’s doesn’t make her swoon like she’s in some tawdry novella. (No, she hasn’t read many, but the ones she’s dared to peek at certainly weren’t worthy of literary acclaim.) She watches the way he moves, chin held high, aloft with perceived power, as he winds his way down the halls with purpose. Every now and then, a thin stripe of sunlight catches him just so, and the shade of red she could never again associate with anyone but him lights up those locks. Four years isn’t  _ so _ bad, really. She’s known plenty of couples with age gaps larger than—

“‘Mione, are you even listening to me?” The tinny tone in Ron’s voice pulls her from her reverie, and Hermione blinks once, twice, trying to figure out just what she’d missed. 

“Of course, Ronald.” Never one to lose the upper hand in the volley of her friends’ conversation, she grips her books a bit tighter and walks ahead, tilting her head up as she goes. 

“So then who is right?!” Glad neither of them can see her face from their vantage point a few steps behind, she waits for Harry to chime in. Surely he’ll provide some context and her powers of deduction combined with how well she knows them both can just fill in any parts she missed while admiring the Head Boy just moments before. 

Harry pulls through just before her silence ebbs into awkwardness. “Can’t you tell, Ron? It’s me! She  _ knows _ I’m right because she’s read that bloody book a hundred times. Hell, she probably takes better care of it than her own clothes. She just doesn’t want to hurt your feelings.” 

“Bloody Hell, Harry. Just because she has a copy of it on her nightstand doesn’t mean that you’re right. I guarantee there’s a whole chapter in there somewhere about this.” Ah, so they were talking about something relating to the history of the castle. But they’re wrong. Her copy of  _ Hogwarts: A History _ is firmly shoved in her trunk. It just so happens to also be carefully wrapped and ready for their departure back to normality for the summer in just a few days, but they don’t need to know that little detail. “Tell him, Hermione.” The loud smacks of Ron’s too large hand-me-down shoes grow louder as he closes the short distance between them. “Tell him that there were no bathrooms until recently and they simply spelled away all the excrement.  _ Tell him!” _ In that same nasally, ticked-up pitch that Hermione has come to know over the last few years, Ron begs her to settle the argument. 

Well, neither one was entirely wrong. “Actually,” Hermione straightens her spine, leaving her chin held high as a smile curls the edge of her lips. If they know her at all, and she thinks that they do, they are preparing for a lengthy lecture on the topic. “Your definition of recent must be much different than mine. According to  _ Hogwarts: A History,” _ the boys groan in unison and her smile widens, “bathrooms were installed in the castle in the late 18th century. Before that, Ron is right, but the times are off so really, neither of you wins this one.”

“I  _ told  _ you—”

* * *

Much like herself, her crush chooses to spend hours on end in the library, snuggled in the solace afforded by the stacks. It’s here that she watches as his quill glides over lengths of parchment, here where she sees his brows furrow when a spine seems out of place. It’s not that she’s watching  _ everything _ he does, though a part of her swoons at the idea of watching him doing something else, she simply happens to frequent the same areas at the same times out of pure, one hundred percent coincidence. Yes. Coincidence. 

Around everyone else she wants to be taken seriously, to be studious, and show everyone, students and staff alike, that she is a formidable witch despite her blood status. But here, nestled in the rows and rows of tomes, surrounded by the smell of a musky sweetness that lingers between the pages, she can be that silly teenage girl who dreams of his red hair set against a field of wheat in some far off place. 

The way he organises his notes should be criminal. Colour-coded, perfectly placed stacks line the edge of his work table. Even his quill has just the right space when he puts it down to pick up a reference text off to the side in a stack of relevant materials. 

He’s careful in his consideration of his surroundings, and though she’s young, there’s something about his meticulousness—something about the way he touches things—that makes her stomach swoop.

Hermione sighs, her palm bracing her jaw with a book open in front of her, but she can’t take her eyes off of him. If someone had told her just a few weeks ago that she’d be holed up in the school library, staring at something other than a book, she would have laughed in their face, but everything he does draws her attention: sitting in the Great Hall with that shiny badge affixed to every pair of robes he wears, picking up each morsel of food systematically and wrapping his thin lips around the tines of his fork for a moment before his Adam’s apple bobs and the process starts all over again. 

Her mounting affections are reaching a fever pitch when someone clears their throat behind her. 

Hermione jumps, her palm falling to the tabletop with a thud that’s surely ruined any semblance of invisibility she was clinging to just moments before. 

“Pssst, ‘Mione, can you come here for a second?” 

A whispered shout seems rather pointless to her despite the frequent use among her friends. They must know it’s loud enough to be heard, yet they still try to pretend it’s covert. Glancing over her shoulder, she sees both of their faces, but not much else. It  _ is _ rather late, and judging by the fact that they’re wearing the invisibility cloak, Hermione surmises they intend to stay out past curfew. 

Twisting around once more, she lets her eyes wander for a second, in an attempt to feign nonchalance, before they land on the object of her affection—who just so happens to be looking right at her. Wide eyes snap down to the table in front of her, and Hermione rushes to gather her things. Even with the sound of her heart thumping in her ears, she hears the scrape of chair legs against stone. Her hands nearly shake in her haste as the clip of his polished shoes draws closer by the second. Just as she turns to sling her bag over her shoulder, she’s met with those piercing blue eyes and a set of lips pressed into a thin line. As many times as she’s wondered if they’re soft or pliant or how they might mould to her own, she’s never once found any kind of allure when they’re crushed together like this. 

“Did I hear voices from over here, Ms. Granger?”

Hermione scoops up the last of her books and hugs them to her chest as she shakes her head. Of all the things that could have possibly caught his attention, it just  _ has _ to be something like this—a time when she’s about to knowingly break the rules and surely tick him off. 

“I could have sworn I heard something…” Circling the table, a lean finger taps against his still pursed lips as Hermione watches where she knows the cloak to be, the surroundings shimmering before settling. 

“I was just packing up. I apologize if I was a little bit loud.” She can’t seem to draw her eyebrows down from her hairline but a half-hearted smile ticks up one side of her lips. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

“Not so fast. I know what I heard. Are you saying I was, in fact, incorrect, Ms. Granger?” The way he practically purrs her name makes her knees wobble but she tries to remain wholly unaffected. Her friends are just steps away from them, after all, and Ron, of all people, can’t know a thing about her silly little crush on the Head Boy. 

“Of course not! I just meant it wasn’t me. That’s all.” Her half-formed grin grudgingly crawls across her lips as she attempts to sound sincere. When he doesn’t speak for a moment, she sighs. “Well, I must be going. Wouldn’t want to be out past curfew.”

She’s four steps away before he says a thing. 

“Certainly not. Oh, and tell my brother that the next time he borrows my aftershave not to douse his little girlfriend in it. You reek of him, Hermione. It’s not doing you any favours.”

In that moment, she’s a mix of too many emotions to untangle. She lands somewhere between positively pissed and crestfallen as she pushes open the library doors. As if she needed another reminder that she was nothing more to Percy Weasley than Hermione Granger, his little brother’s best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge massive thanks to my lovely alpha [@msmerlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmerlin/pseuds/msmerlin). Additional thanks to [@nucklearnik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuclearnik/pseuds/nuclearnik) for the adorable graphic and last minute beta!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr [@dreamsofdramione](https://dreamsofdramione.tumblr.com)!
> 
> THANK YOU ALL for reading! Comments & kudos **always appreciated!**


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